Learn The Lesson

Lately I've been pondering the fact that so many of the people I know -- family and friends -- are going through terrific struggles/challenges. Some are health challenges, some are emotional difficulties, some are financial adversities. But they are all very real and very painful.

It is possible to affirm that God is present with them in the struggles. It is possible in faith to know that "everything works together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purposes." (Romans 8:28) I can posit these things, but somehow that doesn't answer all the questions that come up in the actual going-through-the-struggle episodes.

I have come to the conclusion that there is another dimension to this whole reality. I have come to believe that God uses these struggles to teach us some lesson(s). That is not to say that God causes these illnesses or adversities. Only that God uses them to show us new realities, new dimensions in our lives.

It might be that I need to recognize that I am not in control of my life. Even though I proclaim my dependence on God, sometimes I live as though I am in charge. Therefore, from time to time I need to be reminded Who is really in the driver's seat.

Maybe what I need to learn is how to ask for help from others. In my idea of myself, sometimes I see me as self-sufficient, able to get along without the support and assistance of others. Here my pride comes into the picture. It is rather humbling to have to ask someone else to do for me what (I think) I should be able to do for myself.

Perhaps God is trying to change my priorities. Maybe the lesson plan for me is to reveal my mixed up hierarchy of important things. What I see as number one may not be so for God. God could be telling me to slow down, take more time for prayer because all the running around that I am doing is all being done to avoid facing God in my life.

One thing I have learned: God wants me for relationship with the Godhead. Everything else is secondary to that. My health, my finances, my home, my job, my whatever is dispensable if it comes between me and God.

Whatever the lesson(s) God wants to teach me, the sooner I learn them, the sooner my life can move on. That doesn't mean that my life will get back to what it was before because, as my friend Gail says, once we have come face to face with God, nothing is ever the same. But if I am slow, or refuse to learn the lesson, then the Teacher finds it necessary to prolong the class. So my mantra is to learn as quickly as possible.

What lesson is God teaching you at this point in your life?

Triduum Pattern

These are my favorite days of the whole faith year: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, or, as they are more properly known, Feast of the Lord's Supper, Celebration of the Passion and Death of the Lord, and the Easter Vigil. In actuality, they are three parts of one reality, and are called the Triduum, or the Three Days.

When I was a child, Lent would end for us at noon on Holy Saturday. We would have been doing our Lenten penance for six weeks, that is, giving up candy. All those sweets would be piled up in a box. Then at noon on Holy Saturday, we would pig out, making up for all the "suffering" we had endured during the previous month and a half. It was at that point that the true suffering would begin as we over-indulged in the mountain of sugar we had denied ourselves.

Now, Lent ends with the beginning of the celebration of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday. At that point we focus on the re-presentation of the Suffering, Dying and Rising of Jesus by moving through the three day faith celebration, culminating in the hope, joy and triumph of Easter.

I guess the reason these days are so special for me is that they illustrate so powerfully and graphically the CYCLE of LIFE. This is the paradigm for interpreting my own experience, my own Sacred History. As I look back, I see the pattern repeated: suffering, dying, rising, suffering, dying, rising, over and over again. New life, new hope, new beginnings only come about out of the ashes and agony of the dying process.

With that realization, and the opportunity to celebrate in the midst of a faith community, I feel more hopeful, more joyful, more positive about whatever the future may bring. After all, if God could raise up Jesus after his suffering and death, God can surely bring me through my death experience to a new life. What an awesome God we have!